Roguish
by Black Rose Heart
Summary: Oneshot of an alternate universe in which there is an unexpected mastermind. Character death, suicide, non-explicit though.


Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and it wasn't supposed to be this way.

You'd won the game, you'd claimed the prize, and everything was just about as great as it had ever been. You'd found a potential matesprit, a potential moirail, and the village two-wheel device when it came to auspisticism. Everyone had gotten fantastic powers and wings. You were nobles of your planet, and you didn't have to hide your blood. It was relief. It was the spoils. Everything was great. It was. It had been.

It wasn't until Gamzee died that you put the pieces together.

He had been killed with one of his ridiculous juggling clubs, and no one on the remade Alternia could tell who had done it. They're poured over his respiteblock and every area within five starleagues of there. No trace. They ruled it a suicide. The reports of depression and apathy were convincing enough.

But Gamzee was anything but depressed. It didn't fit. Somewhere, some part of you that still cared was frightened and confused. He couldn't have died unless it had been heroic or just. Which was it? Why was it?

Everything changed when Eridan died.

There was uproar in the streets, nobility had been killed, gutted with powers from a glowing white stick you all swore you had never seen before. Everyone you knew was impounded for a week. Feferi cried. You held her while she sobbed because she had no one else. She asked you if you knew why this had happened. They had ruled it a result of malpractice of science. She didn't believe it when you said it either. Her eyes haunted you.

Vriska's death wasn't surprising in the least

She hadn't said anything for months. Terezi said her hive had been empty for months. You'd thought she'd gone rogue. It turns out you were partially right. She'd died from a fall. The cliff was known for its spiked, deadly rocks waiting at the bottom of the drop. Impaled directly through the middle, like a grub-kebob. You told Terezi that and she didn't laugh. You hadn't expected her to. It wasn't something to laugh about.

At first you didn't realize it. How little things changed in your life, one day Game Grub was your favorite time-squandering activity, another day it was staring at a blank wall. The little things about you kept changing. You figured it was just the aftereffects of a hard game session. These things kept falling away, and it took you a sweep to notice what was happening.

You didn't notice until Terezi stopped talking to you. You'd both been edging to red territory, but one day she exploded in accusations.

GC: WH3R3 AR3 YOU H1D1NG H1M?

GC: 1 W1LL SN1FF OUT 4NY UNTRUTHS SO 1TS B3TT3R TO T3LL M3 UP FRONT 4ND 1 M1GHT SHOW SOM3 L3N1ENCY

CG: WHAT?

GC: 1 H4V3 H4D 3NOUGH OF YOUR SH3N4N1G4NS MYST3RY TROLL

GC: YOUR3 NOT K4RK4T

GC: STOP LY1NG TO M3

CG: WHAT?

GC: PL34S3

GC: H3S TH3 ONLY ON3 L3FT

You'd signed off after that. It was too painful to read. When you made the mistake of opening Trollian again, the log revealed long threats and several purely pitiful pleas. Pitiful, if you could feel pity anymore. One by one, they stopped talking to you, all making awkward excuses about having somewhere to go before blocking you. You didn't understand, but that hardly mattered to you.

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you can't remember what it was like to care. You spent your days lying around your hive, doing nothing. You barely remembered to eat. You wanted to remind yourself to feel.

You scratched hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades into the walls. They always disappeared when you weren't looking. You filled grids with symbols but they vanished when you turned your back. You did it again anyway. Horns for Aradia, a circle with horns for Tavros, a little bent rectangle for Sollux, a curve and circle for Nepeta, a balanced line for Terezi, The Ms of Vriska and Kanaya, the N of Gamzee, the waves for Eridan, and the H of royalty for Feferi.

You carved them over and over into a wall that seemed to repair itself every time.

You had to remember.

You died soon after. It was your mutant blood catching up with you. Goddamn faulty blood shit. You'd floated around a void for a while. All you could see was the color red. Wasn't there supposed to be some weird ass bubble shit or something? Weren't you supposed to be immortal? Apparently paradox space didn't care if you weren't the Karkat who had won the game. You were someone else.

She had stolen your soul for herself.

* * *

Your name is NEPETA LEIJON and it's all going according to plan. You're sure you're the only one who remembers the other way things had been. But you've taken care of it now. They were all gone. And you had him back. You could watch the swirling red tendrils of energy prying at the jar you had placed it in. You had all of it now. He'd never leave your side.

The souls of the others, the murderers, who cared about them? You'd stolen bits of them and used it to plot against them. Gamzee had offed himself when he realized what was happening. The wand was something you'd planted for Eridan a long time ago, and he'd been driven to use it when he saw that Feferi had never been the crimson sort for him. You just reminded him. And Vriska? The bitch had tried to track you down. You put her soul in a spider and crushed it with your claws. Satisfying. The body goes mad without the mind.

You just had to get rid of the last one. The tealblood was a loose cannon. Then it would all be over.

Your name is NEPETA LEIJON, a fully realized ROGUE of HEART, and you are a capturer of souls.

* * *

A/N: Just something I wrote back when we found out that Dirk's title was literally "DESTROYER OF SOULS" and so a capturer of souls sounded really cool about then.


End file.
